I have been getting a few heart breaking emails lately from ladies who have lost some weight on programs and now find themselves back in the clutches of binging and purging. If you’ve deprived your body, or yearned for certain addictive food (because you still need to deal with the idol in your heart) then you might find yourself binging again at some point (even after months or years of eating right).
A binge is fertile ground for the enemy to come sow lies of shame and guilt. In that place we may start to believe that we can not recover from this binge, or that we might as well give up, or that our only option is to turn again to dangerous methods (starvation, purging, etc). I’ve re-posted this post here for you because it speaks of a way to become victorious over those binges and it has helped me and other ladies be victorious in this area.
Please read this post to encourage you that we all fall, but THOSE WHO GET UP, refuse to listen to the enemy, and carry on, find victory.
How do you prevent a Binge from turning into a whole day (or month) of overeating?
A friend asked this question on our forum, and I realized that it is a very common question that I might best answer here on my blog.
Of course it would be best to not binge at all. However, preventing a binge is easier said than done. If you are on a journey of finding healing for the root issues behind your eating disorder, you might not quite be at the place where you recognize the early signs of a binge (starting in the thoughts and emotions) and thus find yourself still binging from time to time.
You can easily undo all the progress you’ve made with one lousy binge! So how do you keep a binge from taking over your life?
The answer lies in TURNING YOUR BACK ON PERFECTION FOR GOOD!
In Week 10 of my 12 Week Online Program for women with food struggles I speak about the huge link between Perfectionism and Eating Disorders. If you have strong perfectionist tendencies then you might have a very difficult time trying to break away from binging. The reason: You want to have a 100% perfect day or NOTHING – No middle ground.
In order to find healing in this struggle and to BREAK THE POWER OF THE BINGE, our focus has to shift. We have to ask the Holy Spirit DAILY (maybe even hourly) to help us shift our focus from:
WEIGHT LOSS to HEALTH
AND
24 HOURS OF PERFECTION to A YEAR OF HEALTH
So what am I trying to say?
If you can change your focus (only with the help of God of course) to not see your life in 24 hour compartments of “today-I-will-have-a-perfect-day” but rather view your progress over a period of a year, you will not be so devastated by a binge. As soon as a binge loses it’s power over you, it will start fading into the background of your life, until you don’t binge anymore.
We are so scared of those binges because it makes us spiral down. But if we remember every day that a 90% successful day will give us a 90% month, which in turn will give us a 90% year, things will start to change.
Do you realize that if you throw every binge in the 10% “failure-basket” and just get on with doing the 90% of healthy eating, exercise, rest, and drinking a lot of water YOU WILL HAVE AN AMAZING YEAR? You will be healthy, stronger, peaceful and yes some weight loss will be on the agenda.
However, if you keep having “100% success days” and “100% failure days” (the days when you binge and just keep eating because you’ve already “failed”) then you either end up at the same place after a year, or worse…
Ask God today to help you change your focus FOR GOOD! A binge has no power over you if you know exactly where to “file” it and remember that it’s just a drop in your big sea of 365 days!
Don’t wait for January ladies, start asking God now for that CHANGE OF FOCUS AND CHANGE OF HEART. Even if you don’t do everything perfect (like eat some pumpkin pie), if you start focusing on ways to get yourself healthy 90% of the time, you’ll feel peace return to your life!
Lots of Love to all of you beautiful women of God!
Heleen
Resources for you
Click here for professional counseling services in Oregon
Click on the image below to learn more about the 12 Week Online Program: Women Struggling with Food
Read my story. Click on the image below to download my ebook: God will I ever be free?
Appetite for Freedom WORKBOOK and DVD. Great resource for small groups or for individual use.
Click on the image below to find out more
I love the message ” just get on with doing the 90% of healthy eating, exercise, rest, and drinking a lot of water YOU WILL HAVE AN AMAZING YEAR? You will be healthy, stronger, peaceful and yes some weight loss will be on the agenda.”and it does encourage me, but I am afraid to sign up for the 12 weeks online. The $77.00 is a great price, but I need to stop spending money only to be disappointed again.
Hi Melon
I don’t want to give people false hope, and therefore I will be completely honest with you: This program is not a quick fix but will nudge you towards a place where you can live in victory and also give you the tools to come back to it if you fall (seeing that you keep your password forever, and can come back to it any time you need to)
That said, fear of failure comes from the enemy who would love nothing more than to keep you in a place of bondage. The truth is that you can not fail at this program. It consists of tools to implement basic principals and habits into your life that will benefit you greatly. It’s is not just another diet, but rather a program where you will find the truth about your struggle as well as support and encouragement. God can use even the “failed attempts” of your past. You might have been prepared by those to be here, at this very moment, in this very spot, ready to begin your journey to freedom!
However, God knows exactly what it will take to bring you to a place of freedom. If He wants to use my program, I will be honored, but be sure to ask Him first. I am always praying that God will have ladies sign-up who are ready to walk this journey to freedom and if that’s you I will be delighted to have you!
Heleen
I enjoy this website, as it lets me dialogue with others that face the same issues. We react to the daily stresses of life by binging. I find myself eating junk food with an incrediable energy. Then, I stop, and think, “My God”‘ I’m not hungry. What am I doing. The I want to throw up. Then I will do the same thing next time.
We are not going to tell anyone what we are doing, it is too embarrassing. To think we have no more control over our emotions is dilbilitating. I pray God delivers me form this vicious cycle. I feel better that I have said it on paper.
I pray for all of us that are trapped in this vicious cycle. I once heard a woman say, “we are held down by invisible chains”. I could not begin to understand, but I do now.